Half-Life and Portal movies are still “in development”

14 March 2016

By Dane Remendes

Oh no! I’ve gone and given everything away in the headline! Is it too late to turn back now? It is, isn’t it. Sadface.

The news comes from acclaimed director J.J. Abrams, otherwise known as Mr. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, who’s told IGN that the Portal and Half-Life movies are currently still on track, though there’s not much else to report. Man, that is so much less dramatic thanks to the headline. It’s a real pity there’s no way to erase text once it’s onscreen.

“We’ve got writers, and we’re working on both those stories. But nothing that would be an exciting update,” said Abrams, who only spoke about the movies very briefly while promoting his latest film 10 Cloverfield Lane, on which he is the producer. I don’t know J.J., that seems like an “exciting update” all on its own.

Valve and Abrams have worked together in the past, when they created a Source engine teaser for Super 8 in the form of an interactive trailer. We’ve known that a movie collaboration between Valve and Abrams has been happening since back in 2013, when Abrams and Gabe Newell took to the stage at DICE 2013 to talk about cross-platform storytelling.

So yes, it’s still happening, three years later. Newell has previously revealed that Hollywood showed a lot of interest in creating movies based on the Half-Life franchise in the past, but that their ideas were always uninspiring. Meanwhile, for years he and Abrams have been discussing storytelling in games and movies, and presumably those conversations went well enough that everyone agreed to make it happen. Which is great news for us, and great news for humanity in general.

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